Army Shifts to Asia From Europe

Army Shifts to Asia From Europe

John L. Perry, NewsMax.com
Saturday, Sept. 1, 2001

Listen for howls from America's European allies and its non-ally communist China. The Army will be relocating massive war materiel – and strategic emphasis – to Asia.

This latest development underscores that the Bush-Cheney administration definitely regards the People's Republic of China as a major potential military threat to the United States.

It sets the stage for a strong protest from Beijing that the United States is embarked in the Pacific on warlike policies, directed at China.

And it is certain to arouse resentment and criticism from those European nations that rely on U.S. military might to protect them but have been blasting President Bush for "putting America's interests first" by proposing a missile-defense shield to protect the United States from a sneak nuclear attack by a rogue nation.

An Asia-First Policy?

There is no question that it raises the issue – on Capitol Hill as well as in European capitals – of whether the United States is downgrading Europe to a secondary strategic concern behind American interests in Asia.

The Army's announcement is a major foreshadowing of the fundamental revision of the United States' strategic global deployment of military strength being directed by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. He was given that assignment by Bush to develop a strategy to fit the new realities of an end of the Cold War with the old Soviet Union.

In a surprise announcement Thursday, the Army's highest civilian authority revealed the Army intends to shift from Europe to the Asia/Pacific theater enough missile launchers, armored vehicles, fuel, ordnance and assorted troop-support paraphernalia to equip several combat brigades. Around 5,000 troops compose a typical brigade comprising four battalions.

Army Secretary Thomas White left open the very real possibility that after the support hardware and supplies are transferred, troops might also be shifted to sensitive Asian locations.

Why Europe Will Be Antsy

An undisclosed, but major, amount of war-fighting equipment now stored primarily in Germany and Italy, for the strategic defense of Western Europe, is to be shipped to forward Asian positions, such as South Korea; to staging bases, such as Guam, and to shipboard supply depots, such as the British-owned island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean.

White was at pains to reassure Europe, as Rumsfeld did in his recent tour of America's allies there, that the United States is not abandoning its commitments on the continent.

As the Associated Press reported on a Pentagon news conference conducted by the Army secretary:

None of the 65,000 U.S. soldiers stationed in Europe will be deployed – at least not yet – to Asia, the secretary said.

But White went on to say, with European and Chinese nervousness in mind:

"I suppose anytime you make shifts in strategy and deployments, there's a lot of concern by a lot of different people.

Taking a Whole New Look

"If the Pacific becomes of greater importance than it typically has in the past, relative to Europe and the other regions of the world, you're going to re-examine the whole business [of troop deployment.] We're doing that."

White let the Europeans – and the Beijing government – know the Bush-Cheney administration has grown more concerned of late about China and also communist North Korea as military threats:

"There's been a heightened awareness of concern about the Pacific region. It's been talked about a lot."

Asked if this means the Army will be stationing soldiers in Guam, where the Air Force maintains a major staging base for its operations in the Pacific, the Army secretary said:

"You have to see if there are opportunities for forward basing or engagement" on the Pacific Rim. "I think all the services are going to do that."

No Reduction in Force

When a reporter asked White if the Army would have to cut its overall forces of 480,000 active-duty soldiers to pay for Rumsfeld's modernization, during a federal budget tightening, White replied:

"I don't intend to cut force structure."

In addition to its 65,000 troops stationed in Europe, mainly in Germany, the United States has tens of thousands based permanently in Japan and South Korea.

One of the major concerns facing Rumsfeld as he goes about reconfiguring America's military strategy and deployment is whether the United States could throw enough well-equipped, adequately trained forces into combat in Asia on short notice if U.S. vital interests there were endangered.

China continues to threaten to use military force to retake Taiwan, if it deems that necessary. And within the past several days, the People's Liberation Army embarked on a giant military exercise along its coast facing Taiwan.

Transfer of large stores of American war materiel to Asia and possible redeployment of some European-based U.S. troops to the Far East should be considered in that context.

How Much Can Uncle Sam Afford?

It also adds to the speculation as to whether it is realistic for the United States to equip its military to fight only one war at a time – and whether it can afford to do any more than that.

Those are some of the intractable issues Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and their Republican administration must face on Capitol Hill as the battle over the shrinking budget heats up and the economy chills down.

John L. Perry, a prize-winning newspaper editor and writer who served on White House staffs of two presidents, is senior editor for NewsMax.com.

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